The Cheap Information Officer evolves!

We all have experienced that the focus and clout of an Enterprise Architect is closely linked with the stage of evolution the CIO is in! Even at the risk of stereotyping the CIO maturation process, lets review a typical CIO evolution cycle together. I would love if you could add to it or let me know of some stages that I might have missed! 🙂

Chief Irritation Officer – CIO’s main value in this stage is very unclear. He is trying to introduce his “Chief”ness but no one seems to agree. He is trying to introduce new buzzwords, frameworks and processes and no one seems to believe in them. He is perceived as more of an irritation and to be tolerated by IT and business folks.

Cheap Information Officer – Now that CIO has established her usefulness and getting invited to (some of) strategy discussions, her very next task is to cut IT costs. She constantly hears from the business leadership – “IT projects are too expensive”; “our IT is slow”; “why do you cost so much!” Her main role is to somehow get IT cheaper..

Chief Implementation Officer – There are a few transformational projects being kicked off by the company and the CIO is expected to get his head down and deliver them. CEO and CFO say, “Forget the technology roadmaps, forget the strategies, forget the buzzwords – just make sure that IT does not mess up these projects!”

Chief Improvement Officer – Business leadership believes in the CIO. “Hey, if she can run her business of IT so well, we can trust her with ours too!”. She is regularly invited to strategy meetings, business sees her as a partner and look up to her advice. Things are good in CIO-ville! 🙂

I am sure I missed some other stages that you would like to add, please feel free to suggest some more.